Craig234

No, he has not caused the swamp to be drained. This is not the first pro-trump thing I've seen you post.

Another burger, this one American Wagyu, it's better even than it looks:

Here's another local burger:

Bludog, do you have any info on comparing the climate effect from the average American's use of cars to their eating of red meat?

It's not easy. In addition to all the chains including in-n-out, we have some great independent burger options, such as:

I like burgers, and will cut back. Funny that even on this 'red states' with their pro-beef culture are wrong.

A problem is that the US - 5% of the world's population - has adopted the use of resources so high that the planet cannot begin to copy the same use of resources to the rest of the world. But there is no mechanism in place to say, 'we get the benefits, and you can't have them' - and no moral justification for doing so even if we could, other than the thin morality of saying, 'only a few can enjoy the benefits, so we'll take them. At least that's better than the disaster of the widespread use of such resources'. And so it's critical for the largest user of those resources - the US - to lead in adopting more sustainable, universalizable use of resources, instead of leading a race to the bottom. And that's why the opponents of doing so - those who profit from the excessive use of resources - are so dangerous and evil, preventing the US public from doing the right thing.

Yes, about a general culture of rebellion and enormous musical creativity, I agree. I just don't think Vietnam caused much of it. Even the Beatles seemed to 'just think they should say something' about the protest issue, when they released 'revolution'. It was rather peripheral to their music. John Lennon couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to say you could 'count him in' or 'count him out', so he said in some performances you could 'count him out, in'. McCartney didn't want to release the song because he 'didn't want to stir controversy'. You know, it says something that the vapid commercial creation 'The Monkees' sold more albums in the US than The Beatles while both were releasing albums. But it seems to me the period of about 1967-1980 was the peak of musical creativity.

I don't think it was really Vietnam that caused it. It was a cultural change that more than anything seems to have happened over a couple of decades as the country gradually evolved out of a cultural conservatism. You can look back to the 1950's and even before for observations such as the 'organization man' and the growth of everything from 'beat' culture like Lenny Bruce to the long gradual growth in rock music from the days of simple music - the culture had a rather oppressive feel to it, and mass communication and growing urbanization among other things seemed to spur change. Vietnam was an issue just as climate change and plutocracy are issues today, but they were more things that happened and got some responses than drove the culture. The country had turned against the war, but note that Nixon expanded the war, breaking his promise to end it, yet went from a close election to a re-election he won 49 states in against a strongly anti-war candidate. Hell, the Iraq war was unpopular yet Bush did better in re-election after starting it and finding no WMD than in his first election.

"In 1996, the butterfly population in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve was estimated at one billion, occupying 21 hectares of forest. The 2013-2014 population plummeted to 33 million, covering 0.67 hectares, the lowest ever in the 20 years since measuring and counting began. The main culprit for this precipitous decline is no longer logging in the reserve (although that still takes place) but the huge increase in land planted with genetically modified, herbicide resistant soybean and corn crops (93 percent of total soybean acreage and 85 percent of corn acreage in 2013) in the U.S. Corn Belt. Relentless spraying of glyphosate herbicides on the fields has destroyed the once abundant milkweed, the only plants that monarch caterpillars can eat. The monarch butterfly is literally being starved to death."

Monarch butterflies are 86% gone in California recently, and on the way to extinction. Part of 60% of all wildlife globally being gone in the last 50 years. This should be a leading news story every day, and is practically never mentioned. https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/us/monarch-butterflies-decline-trnd/index.html https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds

There are two world views at war. In one, the left's, the people are most important. Their interests. What's good for the broad public - opportunity, money, freedom, civil rights, and a lot more. In the other, the right's, the people don't matter. Only the few on top matter. The people are just a burden - it's not unlike how a rancher would view animals. At best, the desire is to give them minimal care to profit from them. At worst, they're pests to kill. Anything the people get more than that, they're merely lucky at the wonderful generosity of those at the top to let them have it, why aren't they more grateful. Few on the right are as extreme as to actually push that worldview totally, but it does easily justify higher concentration of wealth and power, less for the public's housing/medical care/education etc. But this is the basic choice - a government that makes the economy and the laws benefit the people broadly, or a government that makes the economy and the laws benefit the few on top and has little to no concern for the rest of the people, at least far less, just trying to get the most productivity for the least expense possible. Which is why wages are flat for decades now. And this is how to understand right-wing politics - that the issues don't matter for them other than to get votes to get power to get money. So the left tends to work hard on issues - how can we improve education, how can we improve justice, how can we improve medical care, and so on, while the right's only concern is 'how can we get our servants elected to they can run things for us'. They simply hire candidates, marketing, campaign consultants, to try to win by saying anything that will get them votes. And this is important to understand, so people aren't trying to take the right's politics seriously as well-intended solutions to issues. They're instead things like smoke screens to justify bad policies or simple pandering. Just as a few rich people tell young men about patriotism and glory in order to get them to kill and risk their lives in wars for the benefit of the rich, right-wing politics tells voters about things like patriotism and 'conservatism' and falsely uses words like 'morals' to get people to vote for them.

And every time a right-wing terrorist or racist kills someone, we'll remove and jail a Republican politician. And any time someone uses a handgun or assault rifle to kill someone.

That's the only way to do it. Republicans are all about for-profit insurance for only some of the people who can spend a lot and leaving tens of millions unprotected.

As I recall, the current system would be something like $56 trillion. Healthcare for all would save the country money and prevent Americans dying because they lack insurance. Though some Republicans want them killed. Who's un-American?